“I really hate writing conclusions. I am writing something now and I am very tempted to write the following as my conclusion: I wrote, I argued, it has finished. You can stop reading now. Thank you.” — (via Bluesky January 2024) This is a very common sentiment. I have seen it numerous times on social […]
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How grading has ruined peer review
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · How grading ruined peer review “Academics should not be terrified of one another’s judgments, just as students should not be afraid of their teachers. … we need to imagine things as they might be otherwise; in this case, a world where evaluation of others isn’t part of the daily […]
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Spotlight On: Peer Review
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Spotlight On: Peer Review Peer review is central to academic freedom. It ensures that the criteria for evaluating the quality of scholarship are in the control of scholars and not subordinated to commercial, government, or other interests. My writing on peer review over the years has primarily focused on […]
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Academic Writing & Publishing: A Discussion with Katherine Firth
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Academic Writing: An Interview with Katherine Firth This post is an edited transcript of my interview with Katherine Firth in October 2019 to celebrate the publication of my Short Guide on Peer Review. JoVE: Hello. So I am Jo Van Every, and this is Katherine Firth. [Katherine confirms]. […]
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Peer Review is worth saving
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Peer review is worth saving There is a crisis in peer review. It affects all disciplines. It affects all types of publishers. It adds delays to the publishing process, which was already frustratingly long. I suspect it is also affecting the reviews themselves in various ways. The Peer Review […]
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What is Real Writing anyway?
At the beginning of every planning class in the Academic Writing Studio, I ask participants a set of questions about what they did in the previous period. We focus on writing, and I ask questions about how much time they protected, what they worked on, and how those projects advanced. I do this in the monthly […]
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Making Decisions: peer review
This post was originally written in February 2021 as a follow up to Planning Your Winter Semester and was shared in the Academic Writing Studio. It has been edited and divided into a series of shorter posts for ease of reading. The general principles—habits, routines, and default responses—are explained in the first post in the […]
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Thoughts on academic freedom, scholarly publishing, and mundane practices
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Thoughts on academic freedom, scholarly publishing, and mundane practices This post is something I initially wrote for my newsletter. I had come across something that I wanted to write about even though I didn’t have a neat conclusion or lesson. I value freedom and autonomy. I know freedom and […]
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Revision following peer review is a normal part of the scholarly writing process
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Revision following peer review is a normal part of the scholarly writing process Upon the publication of my 4th Short Guide: Peer Review, I had a lively discussion with Katherine Firth to mark the occasion. One of the things that came up was the frustration that comes from the […]
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Peer review supports academic writing!
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Peer review supports academic writing This post is an excerpt from the 4th book in my Short Guides series, Peer Review (A Short Guide), was published on 15 November 2019. I also offer a class called Dealing With Reviewer Comments which is based on the principles elaborated in this book. […]
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Scholarly writing as a collective project to advance knowledge
It saddens and frustrates me that so many scholars lose sight of how meaningful their academic work is (or was) for them in the face of external pressures. Too often the collective process of advancing knowledge has been obscured by competitive pressures that lead to bullying and a distraction from the work itself to focus […]
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What does citation mean? Values and practices in scholarly work
Helen Kara has written a though provoking piece about citation and scholarly friends: To Cite or Not to Cite your Friends. One of her scholarly interests is ethics, so it’s not surprising that she would think about this in relation to the ethics of citation. Is citing your friends cronyism? Is it “gaming the system”? What […]
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